Sailors' Records

My grandfather and his brothers were all sailors, granddad as a seaman and my two great uncles in the engine room. Granddad, the only one with children, came ashore in the 1920s but his brothers spent all their working lives at sea. His younger brother (Albert Percy Rudram) was the family black sheep, a great hit with his nephews but the despair of his siblings. The older brother (William Stephen Thomas Rudram) became a chief engineer and died in a collision between his ship and another much larger one at the end of World War II. I've been trying to piece together his history and as a result of looked at some but not all of the records that might tell me something of his life at sea.

Bertie Rudram's RNR record card

The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) was for professional seaman (amateurs joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve). Uncle Will joined the RNR in 1914 and his record card names the boats he served in and indicates his progression form fireman to donkeyman and then in 1921 to second engineer. There is also a highly abbreviated summary of his service in the Royal Navy as a stoker during World War I. These records can be found in The National Archives (TNA) in class BT377. Whilst they are now only available as microfiche they are not yet part of the digital microfilm project.

Picture of WTS Rudram on the rear of his seaman's record card

The Board of Trade's Register of Shipping and Seamen kept an extensive card index for merchant seamen. I've found two cards relating to my uncle. The earliest is in class BT364 and many of the details have not been completed but it gives his date and place of birth, his rating (fireman) and nationality. It also has a rather poor photograph on the back. The later card is from class BT349 and relates to his final engagement and now he's become a Chief Engineer and written across the top is “Drowned 13.2.45 ex Silverbeam”.

WTS Rudram's final DisA card endorsed "Drowned 13-2.45 Silverbeam"

Tantalising - what kind of vessel was the Silverbeam and what had happened to it. There's another class of documents at TNA: BT BT341 - Inquiries into Deaths at Sea. Amongst these documents was a simple pro forma report into the sinking of Silverbeam which had been run into by SS Fort Le Joi (sic) causing the death of my great-uncle and four other men. Silverbeam was a 60 ton tug with whilst SS Fort Lajoie displaced 7,100 tons.

The tug Silverbeam

There are at least two other series of records that should be consulted to learn more about men who served in the merchant navy. The National Maritime Museum has the Registers of Passes and Renewals of Engineers' Certificates but I've never had an opportunity to go to Greenwich and look for my great uncle's Records. TNA has Seamen's Records or Seaman's Pouches in class BT372. Uncle Will was a Chief Engineer when he died and doesn't appear to have a Seaman's pouche but his brother Albert does although I've yet to found out what it contains.